He thought of his child.... «The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists»

He thought of his child. Was he to be a slave and a drudge all his life also? It would be better for the boy to die now.

As Owen thought of his child's future, there sprung up within him a feeling of hatred and fury against the majority of his fellow workmen.

They were the enemy—those ragged trousered philanthropists who not only quietly submitted like so many cattle to their miserable slavery for the benefit of others, but defended it, and opposed and ridiculed any suggestion of reform.

They were the real oppressors—the men who spoke of themselves as 'the likes of us,' who, having lived in poverty and degradation all their lives, considered that what had been good enough for them was good enough for the children they had been the means of bringing into existence.

He hated and despised them, because they calmly saw their children condemned to hard labour and poverty for life, and deliberately refused to make any effort to secure better conditions for them than they had for themselves.

It was because they were indifferent to the fate of their children that he would be unable to secure a natural and human life for his. It was their apathy or active opposition that made it impossible to establish a better system of society, under which those who did their fair share of the world's work would be honoured and rewarded. Instead of helping to do this, they abased themselves and grovelled before their oppressors, and compelled and taught their children to do the same. They were the people who were really responsible for the continuance of the present system.

Owen laughed bitterly to himself. What a very comical system it was.

Those who worked were looked upon with contempt and subjected to every possible indignity. Nearly everything they produced was taken away from them and enjoyed by the people who did nothing. And then the workers bowed down and grovelled before those who had robbed them of the fruits of their labour, and were childishly grateful to them for leaving anything at all.

No wonder the rich despised them and looked upon them as dirt. They were despicable. They were dirt.

And they admitted it and gloried in it.